Progress Software Corporation today announced that CERN, the world's largest physics laboratory and particle accelerator, has chosen Progress® SonicMQ® for mission-critical message delivery.

Scientists at CERN1 use enormous machines to search for the building blocks of matter that explain the origins of the universe. As CERN builds the world's largest particle accelerator - the LHC (Large Hadron Collider), located within a circular tunnel 27 km in circumference - it requires extreme precision and a reliable IT infrastructure. CERN's IT system collects data from a broad range of different, widely distributed systems, and forwards control instructions to systems based on a standardized communication protocol. SonicMQ unites the disparate data and systems without disruption of service, enabling data to flow continuously to support CERN's ongoing research efforts.

CERN's wide range of systems are centrally controlled and monitored around the clock by the Technical Infrastructure Monitoring (TIM) system within the CERN Control Center. The TIM system requires robust messaging middleware to ensure that CERN's technical infrastructure, such as the cryogenic and vacuum systems that operate the colliders, are up-and-running without downtime or fatal incident.

SonicMQ is the industry's most robust and resilient standards-based enterprise messaging system, delivering unmatched service availability, high performance, exceptional management capabilities and unsurpassed scalability for vast and sophisticated enterprise deployments. SonicMQ also provides the communications infrastructure for the market-leading Progress Sonic ESB.

"We chose SonicMQ to form the communications backbone of our technical infrastructure monitoring for its performance and scalability, and for its flexible configuration options," said Peter Sollander, Technical Infrastructure Operations Department Manager at CERN. "We also received the best possible support from Progress Software during our tests and subsequent design work for the solution. The solution has proven very reliable."

"CERN's complex research cannot afford to be halted due to technology infrastructure failure of any kind," said Hub Vandervoort, CTO of Progress Software's Enterprise Infrastructure Division. "SonicMQ features a message delivery system that ensures messages are never lost due to software, network, or hardware failure. Organizations like CERN can depend on Sonic for their most complex business transactions and mission-critical communications--whether they are discovering the origins of the universe or simply taking a customer order--guaranteed."

CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) was founded in Geneva on 29 September 1954 and currently has 20 member states. With around 2500 employees, CERN is the world's largest research center for particle physics. In addition, over 8000 scientists from around the world use CERN's facilities to find answers to fundamental questions about our universe. CERN is currently building the world's largest particle accelerator, the LHC (Large Hadron Collider), with a circumference of 27 km. The LHC will become operational in 2007.